


Popcorn and Conga Lines, Stories and Cookies and Love

by sweetiejelly



Category: As the World Turns
Genre: Fluff, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-17
Updated: 2012-03-17
Packaged: 2017-11-02 01:53:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/363708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetiejelly/pseuds/sweetiejelly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written ridiculously belatedly for luna_glass_wall for her birthday fic prompt of "a Nuke fic where the boys and their kids (Chloe and Asher) watch <i>The Lion King</i>."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Popcorn and Conga Lines, Stories and Cookies and Love

**Author's Note:**

> Super belated happy birthday, Caitlyn! <3

They’re in a cuddle pile, legs entwined inside legs like concentric circles. The popcorn bowl passes between tummies in big hands and little hands, all a little buttery. It’s movie night.

It’s also almost Christmas. They’re in front of the little old TV at the farm. They’re ensconced in the little old sofa in the parlor where Noah used to sleep ages and ages ago. The upholstery is the same but the quilt is quite new. It feels warm and soft wrapped around their backs, like an even bigger arm hugging them all.

“Daddy?” Little Chloe whispers as she reaches for Noah’s chin. “Am I like Nala? I can pin Asher like she pins Simba!”

“Not every time!” Asher sticks his tongue out. He stares down his twin as his hazel eyes flash in defiance. “Right, papa? I won yesterday!”

“Yes buddy, you’re both rock stars at thumb wars.” Luke grins at both of his kids and then up at his Noah to share a look. _Can you believe they’re ours?_

Noah smiles back – _they’re amazing; you’re amazing_ – and combs a hand gently through Chloe’s shiny black curls. “I think you’re funnier than Nala.” And Chloe giggles at this. “They can't make her too funny. She isn’t the-the main… the main… you know, pers- _lion_!”

“The protagonist,” Luke offers.

“Yeah! That!”

Noah smiles at Luke, so proud of him, the way he’s so good with their kids, teaching them, protecting them, loving them. Luke has told him he was a good dad too, but Noah’s not so sure. He’s just happy not to screw things up. He’s better at the smaller things – making grilled cheese sandwiches and cutting them on an angle, washing and brushing out the tangles of their hair, teaching them how to tie their shoes in bunny ear loops, and holding them when the sky whistles, driving sparks into the ground.

But the first time Chloe fell on concrete, red marks on her skinny knee screaming, Noah wanted to cry with her. ( _“Noah, you got her a band-aid and kissed it better. Her granddaddy Holden couldn’t have done any more.”_ ) And the time Asher decided he really likes that pretty shade of pink-purple, Noah heard the Colonel’s contempt clear as bells in his ears. ( _“But baby, you told him it was your favorite color, too, when you were little. He’s happy as a bug. Look at him.”_ )

Still, Noah thinks Luke’s better at this gig. Luke can play any game with their kids. He has about as much energy as they do. He tells them stories all day long, stories about the farm and all the people in it. (And all the horses too!) Some of them are even true. Noah is content to listen, to nod and laugh and share in all the right places. But Noah doesn’t have that many stories. Not yet. Someday he will have to tell them about the Colonel and Charlene. Someday very far away, he hopes.

Anyway, Luke is the fun one. Luke is silly. Luke is very, very silly. Luke is singing and doing the dances with Chloe and Asher right now.  
 _Everybody look left.  
Everybody look right.  
Everywhere you look, I'm  
Standing in the spotlight!_

Their voices rise and Noah finds himself smiling and joining in. After all, Luke's not so subtly nudging him with his toes. Noah evades too late, laughs as he belts out the last refrain, "Oh, I just can't wait to be king!"

"I want to be king of Oakdale like great-grandma," Asher informs them.

Luke laughs and fixes Asher's cowlick. Yeah, Lucinda would probably agree that she’s queen and king and all sort of other royals. "You can be anything you want to be, buddy," Luke pokes Asher’s chest playfully, smiling his dimpled smile.

Noah has to stop, take in the moment because yeah, those dimples _still_ get to him. Like _that_. Chloe leans just a fraction back against his chest and Noah the father pushes through from behind Noah the husband. "Yeah, both of you," he chokes out, "you can do amazing things."

Asher pushes his lips out, thinking about it.

Chloe beats him to it though. "Like tap dance around the cows with buckets on each arm?"

Noah almost snorts a kernel down the wrong pipe. 

"Where did you hear _that_ , baby?" Luke bursts out laughing. He thinks back, trying to remember if he's ever said such a thing. He doesn’t think so?

"Grand-grand-mama Emma," Chloe admits shyly, “when we were baking cookies.”

Noah can’t fight it. He places a kiss to the top of her head, a well of love rising for his little girl, for dear Emma. Thanks to Luke and all of his - no, _their_ , Noah corrects himself - family, the little Mayer-Snyders are growing up with stories and cookies and love.

A lot, a lot of each.

Noah’s not sure how it happens or who started it. (He suspects Luke or Asher. They’re the usual suspects.) But somehow he finds himself standing and tap dancing in a circular conga line, his hands holding onto Chloe’s ponytails (gently) and little Asher hands tugging the leg of his jeans. Luke is somewhere behind and in front of him, laughing.

“We’re the circle of life!”Chloe blurts out.

Asher starts singing _The Circle of Life_. He has a great sort of booming voice. The crowd in the Snyder kitchen comes in to join the fun. And then it really _is_ the circle of life - hands with wrinkles and hands the size of wrinkles – all connected. Noah catches Luke’s eyes and Luke tames his smile down to an intimate volume. And yeah, Noah thinks maybe they _are_ doing all right.

From the corner, the lights from the Christmas tree wink at him, warm and knowing.


End file.
